In contrast with the plethora of studies concerning the social inequalities in health that have been conducted since the 1980s, there are relatively few related to injuries.1,2 There are even fewer studies comparing the influence of these inequalities in different countries. So, the publication of Borrell et al's study on social inequalities in transportation injury mortality across European countries3 is most welcome and timely [see page 138]. Their study elucidated the effect of differing national contexts on the influence of social disparities on road traffic injury (RTI) mortality. This commentary explains what a so-called "contextual effect" is and then illustrate that many such effects can be discovered only through international comparisons. It is thought that contend that "dissimilarities" may provide more useful information than "similarities". Because the contextual determinants of social inequality in RTI mortality between and within countries are different, they have . (Author/publisher).
Abstract